Today the phrase 'all roads leads to Rome' means that there's more than one way to reach the same goal. But in Ancient Rome, all roads really did lead to the eternal city, which was at the centre of a vast road network.

Roman decadence reached its peak with the vomitorium: a room where feasting elites threw up to make room for more food. Or so the story goes ...

Was persecution a consistent imperial policy, and what types of punishments were inflicted on Christians?
The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1883)/Wikimedia CommonsNovember 21, 2016

The image of a crazed and capricious Emperor Nero is immortalised in popular culture: from fiddling while Rome burns to having a sexual relationship with his mother. The historical evidence, however, is rather different.